FOS SUMMARY - “Spirit and the City”

Angels vs. Humans: Union of Immaterial and Material

by Dorothy Poli & Daniel Padovano

July 8, 2008

FOS Summaries are recaps of discussions points, organized and presented conceptually, in a session's dialogue and Q&A among Fr. Frank and FOS participants.  The Summaries' authors further elaborate on certain ideas from a theme offered by Fr. Frank.   All Summaries are approved by Fr. Frank prior to e-mail distribution.  Past summaries can be found on the Cathedral website at http://www.thecathedral.goarch.org/FOSSummary/. 

Angels are Biblical. They are referred to in both the Old and New Testaments.  Angels were created before the heavens and the material world. They are both immaterial and immortal because they have God's breath in them.  They were created to have knowledge, experience and intimacy with God.  Angels serve God, worshipping Him and guiding us.  Angels are different from saints in that saints are human and have material bodies yet aspire to be like angels spiritually.

Altar boys are the image of angels because while serving in the altar, they are serving around the throne of God.  Archangel Michael is always on the left door and Archangel Gabriel on the right door when facing the altar.  The left signifies Michael expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden and he holds a sword barring their reentry.  This is dramatized by the processions from the altar always occurring from the left.  In preparing for the service, the priest leaves from the left door and reenters through the right door.  The right side is held by Gabriel who announces that God became man through Jesus to give us access back to God.  In summary, the left represents our expulsion and the right the way by which we return to God, i.e. our doorway to heaven.

What is the benefit of the expulsion as expressed by Archangel Michael keeping the door shut?
Keeping the door shut is good even though death ensues outside of the Garden.  Death actually reflects the mercy of God for humanity.  If God allowed Adam and Eve to remain in the Garden they would have lived eternally in a physical state.  However, they would have been dead spiritually being separate from Him, His Life and Joy, in a state of sin.  Sin in Orthodoxy means separation from God, from each other and within ourselves from who we are really.  Adam and Eve die physically so that sin in humanity, or the continual separation from God, can die.  Therefore, we have an opportunity to come back to God through the death of our fallen humanity on the Cross, being restored to our original humanity through the Resurrection.  Body and soul will then live eternally in the Kingdom of God after the Second Coming.

The door opens

Jesus as the new Adam resurrects us spiritually, sanctifies our flesh and reestablishes fully our relationship with God.  The righteous people (Moses, David, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job et al) of the Old Testament, no matter how holy they were, had only an intermittent relationship with God and the gates of Paradise were closed to them after death.  Only after the Resurrection were they escorted by Jesus to be with Him in His Kingdom.  Pardon is received from the Cross and salvation is granted.  The “veil of the temple was rent” from top to bottom meaning that God comes from heaven to earth to reconnect with man.  Man is made upright from his praying stance of being bent over.  We finally “see the face of God and live”.  Grace flows not just to those who came into contact with Jesus but is released with blessings to all of humanity. 

Our baptism is our death (represented by the dunking) and rebirth.  Our original humanity is restored and salvation is granted.  It is also our protection against evil.  We open ourselves up to evil after our baptism through our own actions.  While salvation is made available, each one of us must take the steps necessary to claim it.  We are not robots but in cooperation with God if we want to be united with Him.  God offers us the Sacraments of Holy Communion, Confession and Holy Unction to heal us again from our actions that make us fall over and over again.  It is then up to us to partake of the Sacraments and seek this relationship with God.

God as the Divine Creator

Jesus is the Creator.  Each person of the Trinity while united has a different role in creation.  The Father wills it, Jesus does it and the Holy Spirit energizes and perfects it.  As creations of God, both humans and angels have a beginning.  Only God as Creator has neither beginning nor end.  Therefore, the Trinitarian God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit have always existed and there never was a time when they were not. "I am" is the name of God, stated by Him to Moses.  Also, Jesus responded 'I am" when the Roman soldiers inquired for Him for the purpose of His arrest.  At the mention of His name, all fell back by a force.  Scriptures say that at the Second Coming, with the pronouncement of the name "Jesus" “every knee will bow” in reverence and repentance.  At that point, all intellectual debates become moot and doubt about the divinity of Jesus gives way to certainty.  It will no longer be a matter of faith or reason.

God as Human - “God became man, so man can become god”

2000 years ago, Jesus, as a Divine Person of the Trinity Who is infinitely outside of time and space, becomes human and enters into our finite time and history.  Christmas is the celebration of this entry through His human incarnation. In taking on body and flesh, He brings our physicality up to the Father so that it can become sanctified again and transformed into the divine. Christianity and all other religions recognize the divine in every human person. 

Christianity, in particular, teaches that as children of God, He knows each of us by name.  God always welcomes His child who wants to return to Him, and even yearns for our return is shown in the parable of the prodigal son.  He values our uniqueness and individuality and created each of us with his or her unique set of gifts.  We use those gifts with the strength and guidance He gives us to find our way back.

Union of the material with the immaterial

Some Orthodox Fathers believed that God allowed Satan, a fallen angel, to take on flesh in the Garden.    Given an opportunity to repent, instead he became jealous of Adam and Eve because as humans they were created with material bodies to enjoy creation and Satan also wanted that for himself.  Jealousy as a result of pride was introduced once again by Satan but with dire consequences for creation.  He took on flesh in the form of the serpent and tempted Adam and Eve to think of themselves first before God or each other, a manifestation of the self-centered ego.  Adam and Eve selfishly used creation for their own enjoyment separate from Him Who gave it to them.  That was the sin which permeated the universe and tainted all of creation.  In this way, Satan created disharmony by separating and dividing them from God and from one another.  "Diavolos" in Greek means divider which leads to disorder and breakdown.  As he did with Adam and Eve, he has been negatively influencing and pitting humans against each other and against God throughout time.

Adam’s and Eve's expulsion led to the separation of the material from the immaterial.  Satan wants this disharmony because that separation leads souls away from God; whereas, its union leads to God.  The sanctity of the body leads to order and integral wholeness which is characteristic of God. 

The Church calls us all together to be in union and harmony.  Our task then is to unite the material with the immaterial.  We are all called to be priests in the sense that priests offer back to God what He has given to us.  The priest offers the gifts (bread and wine that we toiled to form) with prayer for the consecration saying "Thine Own of thy Own” (“ta Sa ek ton Son”).  God then gives the consecrated gifts and all of creation back to us to enjoy; taking elements of the material world and unifying it with the immaterial Divine Spirit of God in order to sanctify our bodies. 

Resurrection of the body

St. Paul says that an individual's body is the “temple of the Holy Spirit”.  We are called to honor our bodies and link the spiritual with the physical because the body shares in the creation of God.  If what we do with our bodies does not have a purpose in creating oneness, that is, spiritually connecting us to God, one another or creation, disconnect within our integral whole occurs. 

Jesus says we are much more than our bodies.  Who we are in our core does not grow old even if we die.  Our bodies as we now know them will fall apart and decay.  However, our bodies will be transfigured at the second Resurrection into spiritualized bodies.   The resurrection of the body refers to the union of spirit and a transfigured body, akin to Jesus' Body after the Resurrection, which the disciples did not even recognize.  It has not been revealed to us what a transfigured body will look like.

We are immortal not only in spirit but eventually in body as well.  We will live physically either in anguish away from God or with joy towards God.   In Orthodoxy, moving away from God is the state of hell. Moving towards God is a state of heaven. Neither hell nor heaven is a physical place but rather a state of being, the state of our relationship with God.